View full sizeSteve Fung, a former TriMet driver, said the agency's reliance on split shifts is another problem, leading to extreme fatigue. He said that helped speed his decision to retire. "You're leaving the house at 5 in the morning and not putting the key back in the door until 8 p.m." Jamie Francis/The Oregonian

TriMet
operators and other "safety-sensitive" workers would be required to take a
minimum of 10 hours off between shifts under a new fatigue-fighting proposal
submitted by the agency's management.

However, the union representing
operators, mechanics and support staff quickly rejected the plan on Monday,
saying it doesn't go far enough to address the growing problem with
exhaustion.

"No human being, especially one
transporting passengers through city traffic, can safely operate a bus for over
a 14-hour-long work day – day after day," said Bruce Hansen, president of
Amalgamated Transit Union 757.

Hansen said management's insistence
that its proposal cover more than bus drivers -- including light-rail
operators, dispatchers, maintenance mechanics and technicians and supervisors –
is a deal killer.

It's an unmistakable change of tune for
a union that has rejected any attempts to change the current scheduling policy, which allows many overtime-hungry bus drivers to work up to 22 hours in a
24-hour period, as The Oregonian's eight-month examination found.

In late 2011, after the Oregon
Department of Transportation threatened TriMet with civil penalties for allowing
light-rail operators to work longer hours than allowed by the state, agency
officials sent a letter to the union.

Public
records show TriMet's management wanted the ATU's then-president to sit down to
talk about limiting the hours worked by bus drivers. Without a mandate from the
state or federal government, or contract concessions, Hunt, a former TriMet
mechanic, replied that the union preferred to stick with "the status
quo."

"That was a different (union)
president," Hansen said, explaining the turnaround. "Now we have a president
who was a bus driver and understands the concept of fatigue."

Under a mandate from the Federal
Transit Administration, ODOT regulates the hours worked by light-rail operators,
requiring at least seven hours off between shifts and limiting work hours to 70
every seven days.

The state's transit agencies, however,
are allowed to set so-called "hours of service" policies with bus drivers
through collective bargaining.

The current policy, based on service
days, makes it easy for a driver to finagle extra overtime by working marathon runs. It simply says
bus drivers are limited to 17 hours each service day, without mandating a
minimum number of hours off between shifts.

So, a driver can work 12 hours or more
until 2 a.m. at the end of one service day and clock back in at 4 a.m. to work
another long shift for up to 17 hours the next service day.

Under management's new proposal, a 24-hour service day "restarts every time the employee reports to work after having at least 10 consecutive hours off."

In an letter to the union,
Randy Stedman, the agency's executive director of labor relations and human
resources, said, "We feel that the issue of worker fatigue that affects the
safety of our riders is not limited to bus operators, but should include
additional safety-sensitive positions."

In its 12-hour workday proposal, the union has recommended a
required minimum of 10 hours off for bus drivers between service days, except
for "extra board" operators who are frequently called upon to fill
open shifts. Extra board operators would be required to take a minimum of nine
consecutive hours off.

Of course, TriMet management and the
ATU do agree on two things: Operators should be limited to 70 hours over
seven days and no more than 13 straight days of work. But those rules are
already in place under the current policy.

Both
proposals would be interim, with the expectation that a permanent policy would be hammered out in contract
talks. Because of a legal dispute over public access to negotiating sessions,
the start of bargaining for the next contract is two months behind schedule.

The
Oregonian's recent examination of driver fatigue showed how TriMet has paid
overtime rather than pay new employees what are among the most generous health
care and retirement benefits in the transit industry.

A
long hiring freeze, which ended in recent months, and 10 percent absenteeism
have created more opportunities for overtime, and the number of drivers earning
more than $100,000 a year has gone from zero to eight in three years --
including one who made nearly $117,000 in fiscal 2012.

By
limiting "the span" of a driver's work day to 12 hours, the ATU
proposal would scale back TriMet's reliance on long split shifts, a common
practice for decades in the transit industry.

Of
course, the union's plan would also reduce overtime opportunities for many
drivers. But Hansen said his immediate
concern is the safety of drivers and the public.

"I've
heard from just one operator who is upset" about a potential reduction in
overtime, he said. "They said it's the union's responsibility to maintain their
livability."